Monday, May 04, 2015

A.J. Ellis, last year's starting catcher for the Dodgers, has always been regarded for solid defense, general poise and presence, and on-field leadership. However his woeful batting average (.191 last year in 93 games) led the club to pick up Yasmani Grandal for the starting catcher role this year. Although Ellis' OBP was relatively more positive (.323, in the range of reasonable relative to last year's starting lineup), his OPS+ of 67 was by far the worst of any position starter last year. And this year's OPS+ of 22 isn't going to make much of a case for Ellis to get back to a starting role anytime soon.

But yesterday, Ellis got the start, and so the Dodgers' scoreboard operator had to put up some interesting facts about Ellis for the game. According to SoSG Dusty Baker, who was at the Stadium yesterday:

In-game stat for A.J. Ellis is that he reached the 1000th tweet mark on April 5 2015

Ouch. Can't believe the Dodgers' stat guys can't even find something else, like Ellis' ability to hit well during day games against teams with red caps who have two starters whose last names start with "Go". Not much more in those dregs one can find, I suppose.